Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-09-05

for Henry George was $4,000. 1t did
not defeat Mr.. Hewitt. The ap-
preaching election in the Empire
State will furnish an interesting politi-
cal study. Between the two great
national parties will intervene these
two attractive sideshows. The Pro-
hibition party claims it has just as
many followers to-day as it had three
years since. The Labor party pro-
fesses to think that it will poll nearly
as big vote outside of Gotham as
within her gates. In this Mr.. George
and his sympathizers are certainly in
error. Just as the Total Abstinence
craze is truly rural" idea, confined
for the most part to the COW counties,
so the soi-disant Labor idea is of city
growth and does not flourish out OF
the shade of brick walls. Here is,
too, an index OF the weakness of both
movements. A Dakotan was heard to
say on the streets few days ago that
Local Option would win in all the
country precincts of that Territory, as
well as in all such sections in Iowa,
Minnesota and other Western
States; but that it would be univers-
ally swamped in all the cities. With
any abstract proposition, its death
knell is sounded the day the people of
the cities en- masse proclaim against it.
The city is the center of thought and
no principle can survive the contempt
OF the people who dwell within city
gates. Now as to the Labor idea, as
promulgated by Henry George and
DR.. McGlynn, the fact that it is
purely of city origin and growth, as
the other, is rural PROPOSE
tor, is an exponent of inherent
weakness. A true and healthy idea
will penetrate to the country-slowly
perhaps, but none the less surely.
The men whose thought dominate
the country. do not take to Georges
vagaries. These ideas therefore
do not gather force. There are
thoughtful men in the movement.
George and McGlynn are philosophers
in their way. But their way is not
practical, it is the way of dreamers,
and visionary thinkers. George always
did ride some hobby to death. No
man with DIR. McGlynn's training and
manner of life ever did successfully
lead practical movement in the ma
terial interests of this mundane
sphere. Again the assumption
is too general that all, nearly
all Georges followers come
from the Democratic ranks. There
are terrible lot of German and other
north of Europe Socialists in the great
cities of the East. Few of these are,
or ever were, Democrats. The Repub-
lican party will hardly claim that all
the poorer ranks OF the social system,
all the laborers, all the artisans in the
land belong to the Democratic party.
That large majority of these do be-
long in our ranks is true, but many OF
them have in all times been blind
enough to 90 over to the camp of the
party which founded and nourished
into strength all the monopolies of the
land. A fair presumption would seem
to be that it is these blind guides, who
never did know where their true inter-
ests lie, who are now chasing the
George-McGlynn will-o'-the-wisp. 1t
may appear when the polls are taken
that the New York Democracy has
not suffered so very much as COM
pared with the fate of her party rival.
That the Prohibition gang in New
York are mostly Republicans does not
require demonstration. That is as
usually accepted for fact as an axiom
That Denis G. Freely, Henry
Georges candidate for Attorney-Gen-
eral, stumped New York for James G. |
Blaine in 1884, is an indication that
there are Republicans in the labor
party's ranks.